


Flock of Birds

by billspilledquill



Category: Naruto
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Canonical Child Abuse, Gen, M/M, Touch-Starved, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25983874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/billspilledquill/pseuds/billspilledquill
Summary: At the age of six, Naruto woke up to three old strangers who claimed to be his friends. One of them was particularly cool, and particularly annoying.[Naruto gets de-aged. Sasuke knows why.]
Relationships: Sakura Haruno & Uchiha Sasuke & Uzumaki Naruto & Hatake Kakashi, Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 12
Kudos: 203





	Flock of Birds

**Author's Note:**

> Yes ALL my naruto works are about the same thing, but hey, there’s a semblance of plot in this one.

> To be a bird, or a flock of birds doing something together, one or many, starling or murmuration. To be a man on a hill, or all the men on all the hills, or half a man shivering in the flock of himself. These are some choices.
> 
> A man had two birds in his head—not in his throat, not in his chest—and the birds would sing all day never stopping. The man thought to himself, _One of these birds is not my bird_. The birds agreed.

> Richard Siken, _The Language of the Birds_

Naruto trashed in his arms. His hands— two _full_ hands, laid flat on the skin. Naruto held him; he held Naruto. They held each other.

“It hurts!” he cried. “It hurts!”

“Yes,” Sasuke said, to feel, somehow, the life startling on and off of him, the odd sparks. The world in a spin, and the whirlpool of air stumbling through them. Slash the heart— cut the ventricles—and Sasuke was left with blood, and the knowledge that when he let go of Naruto he will bleed out, an empty ridge, and disappear, waves against the current, to beat back receding. Spasms. Whispers. Then— like steps on a snowstorm— the slow dawn— nothing. 

“I’m scared,” Sasuke said. “I’m scared, too.”

Naruto’s limbs grew in size, his head felt heavy in his chest. In the library, Sasuke bleed everything out, and hurt in cadence.

*

Amidst the cluster of noises in a room he had never been to, Naruto tried to stay still.

It was _loud_. Naruto didn’t like noise—he liked _being_ loud. He alone was enough to cause chaos, they said, and Naruto would shout to prove the point. But noise was _everywhere_ , nothing he can fill in. Naruto couldn’t stay still, and he was trying _so_ hard. 

“Could be a plot—”

“He’s a child—”

“He’s not supposed to be one—”

“He’s harmless—"

“I was talking about the possibility of henge—”

“It’s fine, Sakura—"

Someone coughed; Naruto was twisting his shirt— one that was too big for him— glaring to will his hands to stay still. “Tone it down,” someone said, ”he’s awake.”

A nice voice, Naruto thought, before looking up to find three pairs of eyes staring at him.

Naruto tried his best to glare, but it was weird. No one looked at him this way. People look, all the time, but it was different. It was different now. It was weird. It felt weird. Naruto hated being weird.

He summoned his courage, puffed out his chest, and managed to squeeze out from his teeth something like a gurgle.

A man—the one with the pink hair, was getting angry. Naruto thought that it was a little funny. His legs jittered under the man’s gaze, and he kept his mouth shut. He usually liked people angry; he usually liked people looking. 

One of them, the one with a cool cloak, walked up to him. Dark hair, dark eye—the one beneath the fringe a weird purple. It was cool—everything about the guy was cool, and slightly terrifying. That was the colour he turned into when he ate too much; maybe the cool guy had some disease? Is he sick? Naruto remembered how it pained him, and felt a little sad for the old man.

The cool guy asked so gently that Naruto almost didn’t caught on. “Tell me,” he said. “Do you know who you are?”

Naruto immediately shot his hands up. He tried not to feel angry; it was useless to be. “I know, I know,” he said. “I know who I am.” The cool guy seemed powerful—he can probably land a punch, a hard one. He started to read the room; he had never been here. How long did they keep him here? Why hadn’t they killed him yet? Naruto said quickly, stuttering out, “I know my place. I know. I will fight you—I will leave,” and weak in his resolve, hating himself for it, he whispered, “Don’t kill me.”

The pink man waved a hand; he was laughing at him. Naruto repressed a shudder.

“Please.” He had only begged once before that, and it was when he was out of food for three days. He _hated_ begging. Naruto hated a lot of things. “I won’t do anything to the house; I will be— good.” Yes, Naruto decided. That was the word. They liked this word. Everyone liked this word. Satisfied, he repeated confidently, “I will! I will be good.”

But the cool guy was still angry. He looked like the face Naruto would make in the mirror when his stomach growled at night and there was nothing that could make him fall asleep. Was the guy hungry? But he looked so cool and strong. The cool guy grabbed his shoulder, his grip intense; Naruto closed his eyes.

The guy just kept talking. “Who are you? Do you know who you are?”

Naruto blinked his eyes open. Slighted and confused, he touched his face; maybe the hit came too fast and he was healed too quickly. Sometimes it was like that; sometimes he didn’t feel a thing. The hands were still on his shoulder, though. The cool guy was waiting for an answer.

Naruto was starting to get annoyed. What did this guy want? He isn’t doing anything—he just kept asking questions. It was like himself with Jiji—and that thought made him feel weird, too. _Questions are sometimes unnecessary, Naruto. A good Ninja doesn’t ask questions. A ninja doesn’t question anymore than he should._ Naruto didn’t know what most of them meant, but he can, he supposed, be good. That word he knew. Good. Bad. Words. He was somewhere in between, he hoped.

They were still looking at him.

“I’m going to _leave_ ,” Naruto cried, struggling to stand up. “You know who I am! Everyone knows!” When the hand pressed on his shoulder, Naruto gritted his teeth, panic coiling in his guts. “Let me go!”

“Tell me who you are,” the cool guy insisted, his voice a simple whisper. This man can kill him. Naruto felt weird, squeamish. No one had given him attention like that— solely, intently— and he would have liked it. They were looking _at_ him; usually they would look with eyes that he did not understand. Dust, travelling through, and if they latched their hands they would hover to the sky, and find nothing else but air. These people were different. It made him angry; this guy had to ruin it. He had to keep asking who he was.

Naruto swallowed down the fury, and crossed his arms. “Can I leave after that?”

The grip tightened. Someone complained behind the guy; it was the pink man. His frown showcasing complaint. The cool guy not killing fast enough. Uneasy, Naruto averted his gaze and tried not to scream. This was how they liked it. Silence. They really do want him dead. 

Voice. A sigh. Naruto peered toward the source. The person with the nice voice said, “You’re scaring him.” Naruto sat up straighter, just because he wasn’t _scared_. The man turned to Naruto. “We are not here to hurt you,” he said, “but we do need for you to answer the question. I swear we mean no harm.” And the man smiled at him, his one visible eye curling. “Do you know who you are? We just need to make sure.”

Naruto stared at the floor. It was such a nice floor; it shone. “You won’t kill me?”

“Of course not.”

It was getting so confusing. “Why not?”

The man seemed to have frowned. Naruto couldn’t really see, or notice. He was moving his hand over and over the seams of his shirt.

“Why would we?”

Naruto kept doing that. If he just kept doing that, they will leave. The playground, the marketplace, this very nice room. Keep moving. Keep doing thing; keep it, keep it, keep it. His body couldn’t rest; his body was lightening, burning the roof and colour the floor. Naruto bit his lips. The cool guy’s hands were starting to feel a little painful, but it was alright. He can endure pain. He promised Jiji.

“I know it’s hard to understand now, but we are your friends. Something happened to you. We need to know if you’re still the friend we know. Your answer is very important to us,” the nice man said. “Please.”

Naruto snapped his head up and snapped away. He did the same thing a couple of times. Nothing registered in his mind. Nothing made sense.

Naruto opened his mouth. Closed it. Gasped. “Friends?” he asked.

“It’s true,” the pink man shot up, bright, with a grin on his face. Happy, Naruto realised. The man looked happy. “We’re friends. We have been friends for a very long time.”

The cool guy gave him a nod. He released his hold as if to prove that they won’t kill him. The cool guy stood up. He was so tall.

“And I’m your teacher,” the kind voice added. “Your favourite teacher, of course. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Naruto felt weirder than when he was convinced that he was going to die.

*

They gave him milk from the cold box Jiji told him to put food in. The milk tasted better than the one at his house. Naruto shook the glass and observed; there wasn’t any white jelly in it.

The cool guy grabbed the glass.

“Hey!”

“Don’t play with your food.”

“I’m not playing!” Naruto yelped, waving his arms to reach the milk. “It’s _my_ milk. You give it to me! It’s mine!”

The cool guy was starting to be annoying, Naruto decided. He saw the guy’s eye glint.

“Tell me who you are.”

Naruto huffed. When the guy stared at him blankly, he snatched the milk, snickering. Alright. “Monster,” he said. “Are you happy now?”

The man set the milk on the table very unhappily.

Naruto gingerly cradled the milk to his chest, but faltered when the three started to frown. Adults got angry all the time; Naruto knew. That was their faces when he said something wrong. _Bad_. Naruto never thought himself to be bad. He never thought much of anything. To be anything. _Monster_. Maybe it was the wrong word. Naruto scratched the back of his head and tried hard to remember. Naruto didn’t like to remember, but they were so nice to him with the milk. It was really good.

“Uh,” Naruto said. “Demon?”

They didn’t answer. Seriously, what did they want him to say? Naruto worried his lips, trying to think; after all, they were nice. “Ah.” He narrowed his eyes, concentrating. “Trash?”

The pink man looked very angry. Wrong answer. His eyes were very, very bright. “Oh,” the man said, “Naruto.”

Naruto stopped drinking. “You know my name?”

The pink man smiled. It looked pained. “I said we are friends, Naruto. Of course I would know your name.”

“Oh!” Naruto cried, startling the table. “So you know my parents?”

“We—“

A sound. Naruto spilled the milk on the table. The glass rolled down. With a yelp, Naruto curled in his seat, and for good measure, hugged his stomach.

“Naruto,” the pink man repeated softly. His name sounded weird coming out like that. It had never came out like that. Everything was weird. His stomach hurt. “Naruto, we are really your friends. We are not going to hurt you. All we wanted to know is your name. We needed to confirm if you still have your memory. Your old memory.”

“You asked me who I am. Not my name,” Naruto grumbled and with renewed energy, he cried, “Do you know my parents or not?”

The nice man was frowning. He was sad, or maybe he was angry again. It was hard to tell. “I’ll bring you another glass, Naruto.”

They weren’t going to answer, Naruto thought. No one had answered him before. The milk was soaking his shirt. Naruto clenched his hands around his middle. It hurt; maybe it was the milk again.

“Yeah,” he said, and since they didn’t scream at him for spilling his milk, he continued, “I’m going to be Hokage, y’know!”

The pink man snorted; Naruto shifted his weight. “How old are you?”

“I’m six,” he said, excited to finally answer something that he knew. He faltered when they frowned. “Seven? Jiji said I am seven now. I don’t really remember and sometimes Jiji forgets, too; I mean, my birthday is, uh…”

Naruto recoiled by the look of their faces. Angry. They were angry again.

“I think I’m six!” he said. “Definitely six.”

The nice man kneeled next to his chair. He looked so old. “You don’t need to be afraid,” he said, which was ridiculous; he wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t scared neither. Naruto didn’t know what he felt. “We are your friends,” he said. “We will find a way to repair this.”

“Uh,” he said, and hesitated. He thought how no one had succeeded in repairing him. He didn’t want to burst their bubble. They were nice in giving him milk. “Okay,” he finished lamely. “So what do we do?”

The nice man smiled again. “Are you hungry?”

Naruto’s hands closed on his stomach, and grinned.

*

Naruto had never seen so much food in his life. Scratch that: aside from those huge rooms of food and drinks that you can have (that he _can’t_ have, Naruto reminded himself. He had to use the money thing to get them, and he always used them too quickly), Naruto had never seen so much food in his life.

“Slow down,” Sasuke said.

“Nope,” Naruto mumbled over a mouthful of food.

He learnt their names. Sasuke’s name rang familiar in his head, but he had never seen someone as cool. He would have remembered it. It was probably just a name he thought of naming one of his plants and later abandoned (Sasuke was a cool name). They knew his name and said it often, like Naruto would yell _Jiji_ when his stomach hurt. It made him feel weird; it made him remember things. Naruto hated remembering, so he didn’t try to.

“I can’t believe you took me as a guy,” Sakura said.

“You have short hair,” Naruto explained wisely. “Girls have long hair.”

Sakura did that thing where she put her face in her hands. Sakura was tired and wanted to sleep, Naruto reasoned. Maybe all girls were like that.

They were at Kakashi’s house. Kakashi was his teacher. Sakura and Sasuke were Naruto’s friends.

“Have some vegetables,” Kakashi said.

“No.”

Grown-up him friends. Not his. Naruto can’t imagine himself over twenty—the sheer number felt exorbitant to him—but his friends were twenty, twenty-something. His sensei was forty. This other Naruto had friends.

Sakura patted his back. “Sasuke-kun’s right. Slow down, Naruto.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“Oh, Naruto—"

Naruto’s stomach flipped, and before he could hold himself, the floor got really, really dirty. 

Later was a blur.

*

“I shouldn’t have wasted food,” he said, his hands on the edge of the seat.

“No,” came the stern reply. “You shouldn’t have eaten so much at a time.”

Naruto felt petulant enough to retort, “Usually I don’t throw up.” Then, feeling bad about it, he added in a small voice, “Sir.”

Kakashi took his hands in his, swung them back and forth. “You should stop eating so much. Tonight we’ll try again.”

“I get food tonight?”

Kakashi blinked. “Of course.”

Naruto let his hands there. Kakashi looked strong, too. “I ate enough for tomorrow.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“But what about tomorrow?”

“You’ll get food tomorrow, Naruto.”

“And after that?”

Kakashi’s face turned weird. Naruto should stop using this word, because everything was weird with these people. “You’ll get food every day, Naruto.”

“I can’t, uh, buy all that.”

“We’ll give you food.”

“For free?”

“For free.”

“Uh,” Naruto said. “I can help with your work.”

Kakashi smiled again. He seemed to do that a lot. “You are already helping, Naruto.”

Naruto beamed at him.

*

“A hero,” Naruto said. “Why?” 

They spent the day sitting near him. Kakashi’s house was big—it was the biggest he had ever been in. They gave him blankets and they told him stories. Sakura sat near him, her hand sometimes brushing against his. She wouldn’t even notice, but for Naruto it was startling, almost painful. Jiji would put his hand on his shoulder with a purpose, a pressure that Naruto accepted with gratitude. This felt intimate. This felt casual. This felt more important, in a way that Naruto couldn’t grasp. Naruto sat very still.

At the end of the day, Naruto didn’t want to leave.

Sakura sat cross-legged. Her light fringe shook as she laughed. “You have always wanted to be a hero, Naruto.”

Naruto didn’t know that. “I want to be Hokage, though.”

“That’s basically the same thing! Acknowledged by everyone—”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone in the village—and the world—"

“And I saved _the world_?”

Sasuke did a thing with his mouth. “Don’t let it go over your head.”

“I don’t want to save the village,” Naruto said, perplexed. “I hate them.”

Sasuke’s fringe was thick and long; it covered half of his face. When he moved the eye shone purple. “They acknowledged you in the end,” Sakura said, looking at Sasuke. Everyone was looking at Sasuke, for some reason. “You are known by the entire world, Naruto. You are their hero.”

Naruto was happy, if that was what happy felt like— a tightening, a twist, a churn. His chest felt loud, chirping with breath. He was still looking at Sasuke, waiting for him to say something. _Anything_. Something told Naruto that he understood— this twist of whatever that was in his chest. Naruto’s right hand ached, and planting it next to the blanket, the pain eased. Earthed.

Sasuke said, “Yes.”

Naruto felt earthed.

“How,” he said, “uh, did I saved the world?”

“You didn’t,” Sasuke answered.

“Maa,” Kakashi said. “He deserves credit for it.”

Naruto didn’t know what credit meant, but Kakashi was so nice.

“Yeah, that’s right! I have credit! Loads of them!”

Sakura laughed. “It’s night already,” she said, standing up from their pile of blanket. “I’m heading out. See you, Naruto.”

“Sakura’s house is near?”

“I live just a street away.”

“Alright,” Naruto said. “You will come tomorrow, Sakura-chan?”

Her lips did a weird twist, like Sasuke’s. “What,” she said, “did you just call me?”

She looked in a way that made Naruto’s stomach hurt. He wasn’t hungry.

“Uh,” Naruto said, “I forgot.”

Sakura smiled. It looked weird; it was rare to see people smile, so maybe he knew nothing about it. Maybe when people were sad they smiled. “I’ll come by tomorrow, Naruto. We’ll figure it out. You look after yourself, alright?”

Not knowing what it meant, Naruto said yes.

*

Sasuke didn’t leave. Kakashi did.

“You’ll sleep in Kakashi’s room,” Sasuke said.

Naruto whined. “Why is Kakashi not here? It’s Kakashi’s house!”

“He’s working,” Sasuke answered smoothly, “and I’m going to sleep.”

“Are you going?”

Sasuke glanced at him. “No,” he said. “I’m sleeping on the couch.”

Naruto felt angry at himself for even asking. He felt angry for no reason, sometimes. “Did you _rob_ Kakashi?”

When no answer came, Naruto gasped, pointing a finger at Sasuke, who managed to stay unimpressed. “You are a— a thief!”

Sasuke titled his head, and walked up the stairs. Naruto hurried to follow, his clothes trailing on the floor. “A thief,” Sasuke said slowly. “Do you know what that means?”

Naruto pulled his lips together and did his best to look tall as they climbed the stairs. Sasuke was so fast. “Of course I know!”

Sasuke hummed, clearly unimpressed. It made him angrier.

“It means— that you— you take things that aren’t yours,” Naruto said. “It means that you’re bad.”

Sasuke stopped at the end of the staircase, almost making Naruto’s nose hit his back. His black eye turned to him. “This is Kakashi’s room,” he said.

Naruto stayed by the front door.

“Come in,” Sasuke said. 

Kakashi had a really big bed. Naruto thought of sitting on the cushion and hugging the pillow, and didn’t move.

“Don’t stand by the door,” Sasuke insisted.

Naruto didn’t want to be a thief. 

Sasuke’s cloak was the same colour of his hair. Standing before him, Naruto thought that he looked like a mountain—like nothing can break him. Naruto wanted to be like that; he wondered if he was a little like Sasuke when he grew old.

Sasuke asked, “Did you ever steal before, Naruto?”

Naruto gripped the edge of the door. He couldn’t even reach the doorknob; Sasuke was so tall. He seemed to be able to do just about everything. 

“A thief,” Sasuke repeated, nonchalant. “What did they say? What did they say you stole?”

Naruto ran to grab the bottom of Sasuke’s cloak and lunged at him. Sasuke took him by the arm with one swift move and set him down.

_Do you know what you stole from us, brat? Do you know what do you did? You have no idea. My daughter, my grandfather. You have nothing from the start. You wouldn’t know what you stole. You stole our—_

But Sasuke didn’t yell; Sasuke didn’t shout. His grip was gentle. It made Naruto feel like he ran too much; when his eyes would hurt and his breath would catch up. It was the worst.

“You are not stealing anything,” Sasuke said, lowering himself next to him. Naruto saw Sasuke’s sandals, and how they were similar to his; the thought made him happy. “This is yours. All of this is yours.”

Naruto was horrified. “I didn’t steal! This is not my house!”

Sasuke adjusted his clothes. Too big and puffy and bright, bright orange. “This world can be yours,” he said. “If you want to take it, everything can be yours.”

Naruto didn’t know what _this_ meant or what the world was, and if _this_ can make them stay a little longer. Sasuke wasn’t so tall when he can look at Sasuke at his level, eye-to-eye. There was that thing where adults would pick their child up at their shoulder, too. Naruto wanted to try that, but he didn’t want to seem ungrateful. Sasuke’s back must hurt; he looked angry again. He wanted Sasuke to stand up, if it will hurt less. He didn’t want him to leave like Kakashi did. 

So Naruto asked, “Why is Kakashi not here?”

“Kakashi has work to do,” Sasuke explained begrudgingly, then with a slight smile, he said, “He is Hokage.”

Naruto nearly forgot to scream.

Sasuke’s thin smile was starting to grow. He brought him inside swiftly. “Really?” Naruto said. “It’s true? My teacher is Hokage?”

“Only when he feels like it.”

“What about Jiji? Can I see him?”

“No,” Sasuke said, “you can’t see him.”

“Why?” He said, stumbling in his words. “He likes me. He wants to see me. He said so.”

Sasuke came closer. He said, “The third Hokage is dead.”

“Oh.” The word _dead_ made something like a circle in his mind, and came out like every other word. _Dead_. My daughter. My grandfather. You wouldn’t know. “Like my parents?”

Sasuke said, “A lot people have died.”

Naruto recognized that face, the expression. “Jiji said that they died for the village. That they are heroes.”

Sasuke let him go. “You are one to the world now,” he said.

Naruto wasn’t sure what the world was. Thinking made his head hurt. “I’m not dead though,” he muttered.

Sasuke stood up. He looked less angry, now. He didn’t look much of anything. “People have died for you. People have died protecting us. We are alive because of those that aren’t,” he said. He strode towards a drawer. “You took the hit for me.”

Naruto stood where he was. “What hit?”

“That justu was aimed at me,” Sasuke said. He threw at his direction a bundle of clothes. “Kakashi told me to give you some of his childhood clothes. They look gross, so I think you will like them. You like gross things. See if they fit.”

Naruto dug his fingers into the fabric and hesitated.

“You’re not stealing,” said Sasuke. “I doubt Kakashi can wear those anyway.”

It wasn’t clothes that Naruto was afraid of stealing. Naruto buried his face in the clothes and coughed. He grimaced. “There’s dust everywhere!”

Sasuke made a breathy sound. Maybe it was a laugh, Naruto thought. Motivated, he pretended to cough some more.

“Just try it on,” Sasuke said.

It _was_ a laugh.

*

Kakashi’s room had a large window. Sasuke said he will sleep on the couch.

“Okay,” Naruto said, and hovered near him, unwilling to go.

Sasuke looked at him. “Come here,” he said, and they both sat on the couch. The couch was really nice; it got all those stripes and circles and triangles. Naruto liked drawings; colours and circles. The couch was very warm. 

“It’s cold,” Naruto said, and only felt a little bad about it.

Sasuke went through the pages of a book, and patted the place beside him. “Come,” he said absentmindedly. 

Naruto scouted closer. Sasuke was so big; he was very warm. Naruto had heard about it in those fairy tales Jiji would tell him sometimes. Two brothers. Two friends. Two Shinobi. That story ended very badly.

Naruto tugged Sasuke’s sleeve, suddenly curious enough to risk it.

“How are we friends? You’re very—” cool, “different. You’re not like Sakura and Kakashi.”

Sasuke’s finger stilled on the title: _History of Shinobi_ , it said.

“You were my rival,” Sasuke said. “We have fought each other.”

“But I took that Justu for you.”

“You aren’t known for minding your own business.”

“But we don’t fight each other now.”

“You’re a child.”

“But do we fight each other when I’m— he is there?”

Sasuke turned a page. “I want to read to you,” Sasuke said.

Naruto felt uneasy, then flipping sickness in his stomach for feeling uneasy. “You’re pretty cool, you know,” he said. “You’re not like Kakashi and Sakura.”

Sasuke closed the book with a soft thud. A mistake. Naruto made a mistake.

Sasuke asked, “How?” His purple eye, the one with a thousand rings, circles that Naruto would draw on his walls and colour them bright, stared right at him. “Look at me, Naruto,” he said.

Naruto never understood why people looked at each other, never understood his own impulse to look back, to shout towards, to demand from. It was as if his brain asked him, not so gently, to break things. Like the milk spilling on the floor; too much, too quick, too much and too quick and too much of everything. Despite it all, Naruto always looked back.

“Kakashi and Sakura are cool. You’re cool, too. You’re different,” Naruto said, feeling as though he was teetering on some invisible edge. It was easy to understand that people hated him, it was something else entirely to understand why. If only he could be the other Naruto. The one that was friends with these people. The one that had a Hokage as a teacher. Naruto said, “You always look so sad.”

Sasuke huffed. His large hand settled on his head, and ruffled his hair. “You haven’t changed at all,” Sasuke said.

It was alright, then, for him to keep talking. Jiji would ruffle his hair when he had done something good. When he would be good. “But I’m not like him,” Naruto countered. “I’m not.”

Sasuke removed his hand, and fluttered the book open. “He is you, Naruto,” he said simply. “You are him, down to every stubborn, self-untitled, pompous bone.”

Naruto only understood the word bone. “You’re not my rival,” Naruto answered weakly. “You’re Sasuke. You’re just Sasuke.”

“And you’re just Naruto.” Sasuke skimmed through the pages, his fingers trilling against the edges. “We have fought for a long time, and I have lost. Every single time,” he said, “you have beaten me.”

It didn’t reassure Naruto in the slightest. “But we are still friends, right? You and him, I mean.”

Sasuke had his eyes set on the page, and, not answering, began to tell him a story.

The words were too complicated; Naruto understood two out of six, but Sasuke kept talking, and so he wouldn’t mind if Naruto’s arm touched his. _Before the shinobi world was created, there was the moon._ The couch was very comfortable, gray, and warm, so it wasn’t his fault if he slept. It wasn’t his fault if he sat close to Sasuke. After all, Naruto didn’t want to seem ungrateful.

_The creation begins on the event of the full moon. The crescent meets the full, at the process of symbiosis, only to finally find home in the mutiny of transformation. The phases of the moon curtail the complete metamorphosis to strike a balance in the middle._

Naruto didn’t steal anything. Sasuke said so: he could be good. Naruto was never a thief.

*

Naruto woke up on Kakashi’s bed. He ran to the couch, and couldn’t understand the relief he felt when he saw Sasuke still there, with his head against the armrest, his hand resting neatly on his stomach. Even asleep he looked cool.

Sasuke blinked an eye when Naruto shook him. Sasuke took a look of him and asked him sleepily, “What did you do?”

Naruto shifted his weight. He said, “I like, uh. I liked the story.”

Sasuke blinked again. His hand came to rest on the back of his head, then rested his head on Naruto’s. There was so much heat. Sasuke had very cool eyes.

“Next time,” Sasuke said, “I will make sure you hear the end of it.”

Naruto’s hand reached out to grab Sasuke’s arm; it only succeeded in holding an empty sleeve.

Naruto jumped back. Sasuke dusted himself with one hand—with apparently, as he only realised now, his only one— and stood tall again. Like a mountain. Sasuke must have lied to him. There was no way he can win against Sasuke. Not even once. Naruto once again turned to Sasuke’s empty sleeve, and, returning his gaze to his two full hands, felt strangely incomplete.

“We are going to the Hokage tower,” Sasuke said. “Kakashi has been looking for information on your condition.” When Naruto’s stomach turned embarrassingly loud again, Sasuke smiled. “We’ll buy some food along the way.” He turned his heels. He seemed certain that Naruto will follow.

*

Naruto held on Sasuke’s cloak as they strolled down the streets.

“Can’t you just fly to get us there?” Naruto asked.

Sasuke was amused. “You think I can fly?”

“I think,” Naruto said, suddenly aware how tight he was clutching the fabric. He lessened the hold. “I think you can do everything.”

Sasuke made a funnier face. “I can’t fly, Naruto,” he said.

_Have you seen the brat? The manners of a pig, I swear, and he just vandalized my shop! He painted those dirty circles and just left— I swear—_

“I can’t make them stop,” Sasuke said.

_If he doesn’t stop coming—_

“I hate them,” Naruto said. “I hate them so much.”

_He’d better wind up—_

“The dead are lucky,” Sasuke said. “They are complete. They are finished. You’re organic— moving as they stagnate. These people are dead to me. Don’t give them the satisfaction, Naruto.”

“I’m not,” Naruto answered, and felt the unease of being seen, like someone had flared up his entire body, and left him on fire. “I’m not giving them anything. I have never given them anything.”

Sasuke’s knuckles were distinctly shaped. Small mountains. They turned white. “You became a hero to them all.”

“That’s not me,” Naruto said.

Sasuke led him away.

“Uchiha,” they said.

 _Uchiha_ , Naruto caught them before ushering away. _Uchiha_. Naruto had heard that name before. _Uchiha_. The emblem on an abandoned house, a distant shore, a forgotten news. _What is he doing here? What is the Uchiha doing here?_

_Uchiha._

_Uchiha Sasuke_.

“Ah,” Naruto said.

Sasuke looked at him. Naruto remembered how the other Sasuke looked at him, too, by the pond—they met once, mouths curling in distaste and heads snapping to the sky, a bright, startling orange. This Sasuke was different. This Sasuke smiled at him and held his hand and told him stories. This Sasuke had friends. Naruto was being ungrateful. Again and again, he kept stealing other people’s things.

Sasuke’s hand twitched in his. “What’s wrong?”

Naruto held it tighter. “I’m hungry!”

Sasuke smiled. Naruto wanted to stretch his own face like this; he wanted to make people feel like the way he was feeling now. Sasuke was good. He was never bad, but he wanted to be good. When the whispers rushed through, Naruto thought that he had wanted to be Sasuke even before meeting him.

“Let’s go,” Sasuke said, and Naruto will. He will follow.

*

Naruto had never ate something like that before. Jittering in his seat, Naruto jabbed his chopsticks in the bowl.

“Are you sure you can’t fly?”

“No,” Sasuke replied with a mouthful of the nicest thing Naruto had ever ate. “Just eat,” Sasuke said, turning exasperate when Naruto stared on. “Close your mouth. It’s just ramen.”

A man behind the counter grinned at him. “Kakashi said something of the like… but I didn’t know it was possible. Look at him, Ayame. He’s a child.”

Naruto swallowed his noodle and scouted closer to Sasuke. The soup had a nice colour. The thing on top with the pink swirl was good, too. Everything was good except for the noise.

“He’s _tiny_! Makes me feel young again,” A voice cooed. “Oh, Uchiha-san. Hello.”

“Ayame-san,” Sasuke said.

“Naruto, do you like it? I remember when you first came in here— you were bigger than you are now—"

“Ayame-san,” repeated Sasuke, “I’m afraid that Naruto would like to eat without your assistance.”

“It’s not that,” Naruto said, his hand twitching.

Sasuke’s hand rested on his back. “Then what is it?”

Naruto shook his head, his face in the bowl. He stuffed himself with food, and tried not to lean into the touch too much to be noticeable.

Sasuke probably said something else, because they left him alone, after that. They were nice people, maybe, or maybe Sasuke was just that strong.

They ate in silence, at the corner. It was early; they weren’t anyone except them. Naruto’s hands wobbled; chopsticks were hard to use.

“Leave it,” Sasuke said.

Naruto sealed his lips tight and bulged his eyes out. “But there’s still some left inside!”

“All I can see is soup.”

“No, no, look closer!”

“Soup.”

“ _Noo—dle_!”

Sasuke sighed. “Children,” he muttered, and picked up his chopsticks so elegantly that it made Naruto look down at his own sticky fingers. “Open your mouth.”

“What?”

“Open your mouth, Naruto.”

The ramen was so good. Naruto didn’t know why his eyes hurt.

*

The Hokage tower was the same as he remembered. There was a weird thing on top of the desk that Kakashi was staring in, his hands moving on the surface. It looked like magic; _Ninjustu_ , those things Jiji told him. Fairy tales.

“I see that my clothes fit you well, Naruto,” Kakashi greeted without looking up, his fingers still furiously slamming on the thing on top of his desk. “Sakura is in the library since this morning. Do you know where it is, Naruto?”

Naruto stood up straighter. “I do!”

Kakashi’s eye crinkled. The Hokage hat made him very intimidating. “Then I suppose you can go there by yourself,” he said. “I need to talk to Sasuke about his next mission.”

Naruto stopped in his track. “Mission?”

“Sasuke is a Shinobi. Like you, Naruto,” Kakashi explained softly, finally looking up from the thing, “he’s strong. We assign him important missions. Confidential missions.”

“Okay,” Naruto said. “Uh, is he going now?”

“Sasuke goes on long missions all the time, Naruto.”

“Sakura-chan too?”

Kakashi set his eyes close. “No everyone gets to go out unless there has been granted explicit consent from the Hokage. Sakura is Hokage candidate after you. She works closely with the medic-nins here in Konoha. Her home is right next to mine.”

Naruto’s head hurt. “Where is Sasuke’s?”

Kakashi’s looked like his hurt equally as much. “Sasuke is different, Naruto.”

Naruto’s fingers grabbed Sasuke’s cloak. He asked, with undisguised wonder, “ _Different_?”

Sasuke shook his head at Kakashi, the same way bystanders would shake their heads at furious shopkeepers. When they would trail off. The words _: do you know who you are, brat? Do you know why you are—_

They would hiss, unending of words and actions, and the world turned and turned and Naruto winded up with nothing new. Nothing Naruto knew already.

“Naruto,” Sasuke said. “I’m not going away until things are fine with you.”

“Oh,” Naruto said, ignoring the scattered sweat trickling down his forehead; blood had trickled down somewhere, leaving his face with nothing. Anger. Despite it all, Naruto stayed angry at something. At someone. “I’m going to Sakura-bachan.”

There was a ridge between Kakashi’s eyebrows. An ever-present finite line. “She will kill you if you refer her as such.”

“Kakashi,” Sasuke warned.

Naruto had already bolted out the door.

*

Sakura was drawing circles. She saw him, and set her brush pen down so fast that ink drops fell. “What’s wrong?”

Naruto didn’t know what to say. “What are you doing?”

Sakura stared at him for a long moment before returning her gaze to the paper. “I’m trying to figure out how the Justu was cast,” she said.

Naruto pointed to the ruined sheet. “Circles?”

She beamed. “Yes,” she said. “Repetition aids your memory. Besides, I think your condition has something to do with it.” When Naruto just blinked, she explained, “Your life has been… restarted. Rejuvenated.” Moving her brush, she stooped a dark spot on one of the biggest circles. “In a cycle of life, there is always continuation. Posterity. But your life—” she followed the trail of the ink backwards—“your life is stuck. Stuck in the past. A redacted timeline, you can say. Time Justus are forbidden. I’m trying to remember any Justu that adhere to some sort of mechanism to the cycle. Drawing makes me think.”

Drawing didn’t make Naruto think. “I like drawing!” Naruto blurted out. “I like— circles.”

Her smile was gentle. Sasuke’s was different, but Naruto didn’t want to think of Sasuke right now; he wanted to draw. “Then come and help me, Naruto.”

Naruto was careful not to call her obasan, but still, he wanted to say something. Something else. His mouth dried up, and words got stuck up to his throat, but Sakura seemed to know.

“We’ll get you home,” she said, leaving him her stool. It took second for her to bury her head in a book.

Naruto picked up the brush, and thought not of home. He thought of nothing at all. _We’ll get you home._ Circles and circles and circles and tugged at each end was nothing. Naruto kept drawing.

*

“I thought,” Naruto said, with his hands positively dripping with ink, “that you were my parents.”

“Hm?” Sakura had put on glasses on the bridge of her nose. That book on her hand was bigger Naruto. It fell on the desk like a dead weight. “Naruto, your sleeves are all dirty!”

Naruto burst out laughing.

The laugh distressed Sakura; she wiped his cheeks roughly with the back of her hand, coming out with ink stains. “I swear, Naruto, you never change…”

Naruto failed his arms about, and buried his head in her shoulder. Some left-over chuckles faltered as he breathed, and breathed deep. 

“I don’t want to go home,” Naruto said, still smiling for whatever reason. He felt happy. A distant joy took hold of him, unaware of timing or situation. He said, “I wish you were my mom.”

Her body felt frigid. Cold ran down his spine. Naruto remembered himself, and tried to detach his limbs from hers. She held him closer, her face inches from his. Her eyes were the same as Sasuke’s. These three all looked like him like that, like he was something at odds with the world, but better. Better than the entire world put together. _Good_. People had always looked the other way for good things. Good people.

“I’m not,” Sakura said, her voice suddenly gone steep and cold, “your mother, Naruto.”

“I know,” Naruto answered, and seeing Sakura closing her eyes, he did the same. The silence was deafening, in some way, and so he said, again, “I know that.”

 _But you feel like one_ would be the wrong thing to say. _But you could be_ was a lie. _But I want to_ was the truth, but Naruto hadn’t the heart to say it out loud. “You’re my teammate,” he said. “I—”

Sakura nearly crushed his shoulder blades. “What did you say?”

Naruto shut up.

“No, seriously,” she insisted. “What did you just say?”

Naruto hesitated. “Well, you’re—”

“Teammate!” Sakura cried out. “Your teammate…”

She sprung up, grabbing the nearest book, muttering all the while. Naruto froze up on his seat, craning his head to observe. When she looked up, she was wiping away tears.

Naruto wiped the sweat off his hands on his shorts. “What’s the big deal?”

“Naruto,” she said wetly. “We never told you that we were a team.”

*

“So,” Sasuke said, “Sakura panicked and left you alone at the library unattended.”

Naruto took in the shadows behind the eye, and the meekness of the voice, and said, “What is the mission?”

Sasuke sat down. “This library is undisclosed to the public. Sakura got carried away.”

“Why you didn’t tell me that we were a team?”

“I was hardly in your team, Naruto.”

“But I remember you,” Naruto said. “I remember you more than I remember anyone.”

“What do you remember?”

“Everything,” Naruto said. “Uh. I think.”

Sasuke tilted his head to the opened book. “Your memory came back,” he said simply, “and you still look like a six-year-old.” He looked back to him with a slight frown. “Did she let you mess with the ink?”

“I was—I was drawing!”

Sasuke shuffled the papers. “Circles,” he stated, and he looked back to the book. 

“Naruto,” Sasuke said eventually, his hand flat against the desk, the fingers trilling softly, “I think she found out how to break the Justu.”

Naruto nodded. His head felt heavy, uninterrupted. Sasuke continued.

“Memory is the hardest thing to retrieve,” he said, turning a page. “Life is only complete with what we remember. If you do, as you claim, remember everything, then she can fix your age with a counter-Justu. She’s probably congratulating herself right now.”

Naruto shut his eyes, the numbing pain from his head travelling all the way to his right hand. “Memory sucks,” he said.

Sasuke closed the book and went to his side, knocking down a few ink papers. Circles and circles fell down the table, and Naruto just wanted to go home.

Sasuke said, “It’s the only thing we’ve got.”

“I remember you,” Naruto kept saying. His hand hurt so much. “Back at the Valley, you looked—”

Sasuke flipped his palm up. Pain sharpened. Naruto startled his eyes open to see the inside of his palm glowing bright, and in the middle was a perfect circle.

“It hurts!” he cried. “It hurts!”

“Yes,” Sasuke said, and held him. They held each other. “I’m scared. I’m scared, too.”

His hand came to tighten around Sasuke’s empty sleeve. The same strange feeling arose. For a brief, clear moment, Naruto had felt the pain of an empty arm, a long-forgotten dream, and the red-hearted blood in Sasuke’s heart, beating in cadence to his pain. Their pain. 

Naruto remembered.

*

Sasuke had came back to the village by crashing through the window of the Hokage office, looking very much like he flew in there.

Naruto was there, that day, for a simple debriefing. Naruto was also, as it turned out, with Sakura. Sakura, coincidentally enough, was emotionally mature, and could deal with the fact that their best friend came back from whatever trip that he had been for one whole year and didn’t contact them at all, and that same best friend that was now in front of you, perched on the window like a bird, was glaring at him like he was sixteen again. He was about to shout when it dawned on him that Sasuke—bright and angry to the quick, his clothes too loose on him— _looked_ sixteen, too.

“Naruto,” Sasuke snarled, his left hand sizzled with sparks, and struck.

When Naruto woke up in what seemed like a hospital bed, Sasuke was sitting next to him, his hands in his face.

“I told them that I’m fine, and that I won’t attack you,” Sasuke said, his voice too serious for one of a child. “The Justu is temporary.”

Naruto, granted, had the eloquence to say, “Uh.” His left hand was bandaged. Sasuke stared at the other.

“It’s missing,” Sasuke remarked. “I did that.”

“Yeah,” Naruto said slowly, “no shit.”

He had forgotten about it—sixteen, when Naruto had seen the world in the eyes of a friend gone missing, where all the rage had drowsed his skin and made another. Sasuke looked sharper at the edges. The leftover ashes of a colourful fire. “Who did this to you?”

“I did.”

Naruto got up from the bed.

“We cannot have,” Sasuke said, “what we don’t choose. I wanted to have a choice. I wanted to choose.”

“Time Justus are forbidden,” said Naruto weakly.

Sasuke’s face was so, so young. “Don’t you ever think about it?” he asked. “Have they ever apologized to you?”

“I _don’t_ ,” Naruto said. “I don’t think about it.”

“People forget the pain they inflicted to others for a peace of mind. Others forget the pain to remain sane. You don’t.”

Naruto’s neck burnt with the knowledge of being met, of being seen. “I don’t.”

“I do. I am back,” Sasuke continued, “to end the cycle. The deadliest so far.”

Sasuke pulled out a kunai.

“I will end it,” Sasuke claimed, and his face stayed as blank and unwavering. “I will end hatred. This body belongs to my timeline. By removing it, I remove the world. Naruto, you—"

Naruto moved his arm about and tackled him to the ground.

“You don’t end _shit_ ,” Naruto said, his arms wound around Sasuke, the kunai falling flat on the ground.

“Move.”

“No!”

“I will kill us both if that’s what it takes.”

“Do it to me,” Naruto said, “do it. I will make you understand that there is nothing to end. Do it.”

Sasuke grabbed the kunai, settled it on his neck. “Prove it to me,” he said. 

Naruto took hold of the kunai and held it there. He answered, “I will.”

*

Sakura looked only a little disappointed that Naruto was able to back to himself without her help.

“I had found the counter-Justu,” she mumbled, and gave Naruto a sheepish smile. “I’m glad that you recovered.”

Naruto felt his hand, and the other missing. “Where is Sasuke?”

Sakura’s smile grew. “He is waiting for you.”

*

Sasuke was waiting by the gate of the village.

“Back where we started,” Naruto greeted. “What is the mission?”

Sasuke was silent for awhile, “I want to see the world in your eyes,” he said. “Kakashi has already decided that you will be Hokage. The entire village does. I have the mission to be your shadow.”

Naruto laughed. “That’s hardly a mission at all.”

“It is,” Sasuke said, “the hardest mission I have ever taken.”

Sasuke didn’t turn to him—he hadn’t changed; he stayed as tall as a mountain. A figure like that can shoulder everything. At the end, it wasn’t Naruto that convinced him. Naruto shook his long, empty sleeve, took in Sasuke’s missing limb, and had never felt more complete.

“I have always wanted to go home,” Sasuke said.

And when Naruto spread his one arm to the side, as wide as any mountain—Sasuke would spread his. He will. Sasuke will follow.

**Author's Note:**

> I will come back and edit this properly soon. Meanwhile, thank you for reading! Kudos and comments are lovely and treasured ♡


End file.
